Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===Investigation Records of a Certain Pair of Twins 01===

A monorail ran through the city’s night.

It was past seven and more of the passengers were beginning to be office workers rather than students. The first after-work rush hour had begun and it was also raining, so there were more passengers than normal. And the air was quite damp, either due to the raindrops on the umbrellas or due to people’s sweat.

The colors of one pair of twins stood out among them.

Meinokawa Renge.

Meinokawa Higan.

They were both long-haired shrine maidens in bright red outfits. Their faces looked similar, but one had black hair and black eyes while the other had blonde hair and blue eyes. At the same time, they lacked the unnatural appearance of dyed hair or color contacts.

Two shrine maidens sitting alongside people in suits may have looked out of place, but even Shinto officials shopped online and wore 3D goggles at the movie theater.

The two of them were looking at the same notebook-sized tablet.

“That means this train we’re on is the one in question,” said Renge, the one with long black hair.

She used her fingertips to zoom in on a newspaper’s letters-to-the-editor section.

“A story from Toy Dream 35’s Nohara Amahiko-kun (Age 9). When people fall asleep on the last train or on a train that begins deadheading, they go missing and never return. But for some reason, the fact that people are vanishing never ends up in the news.”

“H-hmm. Would a nine-year-old boy, um, really know much about being on the last train?”

“That may be why he added ‘or on a train that begins deadheading’. Just like the Kuchisake-Onna, it may be a story meant to frighten students on the way back from cram school. Like wondering what happens to the drunk man who’s passed out on the train when they get off.”

“But if that’s all it is…”

“Yes. Then a Freedom summoner like us wouldn’t have been hired to investigate it.”

Renge was most interested in the last part about the missing people never ending up in the news. It was quite convenient for the purposes of a rumor, but it was simply not possible. If someone vanished, someone would notice: family, friends, lovers, classmates, coworkers, etc.

However…

“When a summoner or vessel pass Award 100, they’re rejected from people’s perceptions and memories. I wonder if this monorail or the switchyard are hiding something that can only be explained with the rules of our world.”

“L-like, um, there’s some kind of system that causes all the passengers to summon a Material without realizing it?”

Blonde Higan nervously looked down at her feet on the wet floor.

She may have been imagining something like an axe murderer hiding under the bed.

“The rumor has a lot of different versions and they’re not all the scary kind. According to some, if you ride a train that begins deadheading, you’ll meet your first love you haven’t seen in forever, your long-dead pet will return to you, or you’ll find a treasure you had lost. All the variations make the entire thing seem less credible, though. There are even some saying you end up in Guam.”

“Oh? You’ll meet your first love? Eh heh heh.”

“Higan?”

Renge grew a little angry, but her sister did not seem to notice.

At any rate…

“Let’s put the tablet in the bag and set that up on the luggage rack to film what happens when the train begins deadheading. We need to pick up on where exactly anything strange occurs between the last station and the switchyard.”

“B-but summoners and vessels don’t show up on cameras and sensors when an Artificial Sacred Ground is set up.”

“Uuh…”

“And to meet the conditions, we have to prepare a ‘napping passenger’.”

“B-but we can’t just skip straight to a human experiment, Higan. We have no idea what’s going to happen.”

“Eh…eh heh heh. Renge, I, um, did my best to help there.”

“What do you mean, Higan?”

“Um, what do you think was in that drink I gave you earlier?”

Higan said something incomprehensible with a smile on her face.

A moment later, Renge felt like the core of her body was shaking.

“Hi…gan…? You didn’t put a sleeping pill in my drink, did you!?”

“Yawn… O-of course I wouldn’t go that far. I just mixed in some allergy medicine that said on the box not to mix it into your tea…mumble…”

“Y-you mean one of the ones full of ingredients that make you drowsy!? The ones that are the bane of long-distance drivers!?”

Renge desperately tried to maintain her consciousness, but the rhythmic shaking of the monorail car quickly robbed her of all ability to resist. It was like trying to use a single hair to support a bowling ball on a slope, so as soon as something small snapped inside her, she could only roll down into the gentle darkness.



“Uuh…”

Meinokawa Renge was awakened by her own voice.

She was surrounded by darkness. Based on the weight and texture, she could tell the notebook-sized tablet was still sitting in her lap. The monorail car was no longer shaking and the monorail seemed to have come to a stop somewhere. All that humidity had vanished and the air felt chilly instead.

“Where am I…? Higan? This is all your fault.”

She complained while pressing the tablet’s power switch with her index finger. The backlight immediately came on and vaguely lit up the entire car.

Before, adults in suits had nearly packed it as full as a sardine can, but none of them remained.

There was no one at all there.

And more importantly…

“Wait a minute… Higan?”

She was not there.

The blonde girl who looked just like Renge had vanished from the seat next to her.

“!?”

Renge frantically stood up and looked around, but there was no sign of her “sister” who had been dressed so distinctively. There was no sign of anyone else either and the cold atmosphere seemed to reject all life.

“Higan! Where are you, Higan!?”

Renge’s only light was the tablet which displayed the newspaper letters-to-the-editor section.

That elementary school boy from Toy Dream 35 had said the following:

''When people fall asleep on the last train or on a train that begins deadheading, they go missing and never return. But for some reason, the fact that people are vanishing never ends up in the news.